Why It Matters That Politicians Have No Experience of Poverty

“Only 13 out of 783 members of Congress from 1999 to 2008 came from a “blue-collar” upbringing. None of them have experienced that poverty in decades; those who did did so under vastly different public-policy circumstances.”

“The U.S. spends among the lowest on the poor per capita in the OECD, is the least effective at reducing poverty, and consequently, faces the largest poverty problem. Measured by the official poverty measure, poverty now is no lower than the level of nearly 50 years ago.”